Suvi Satama | Aalto University School of Business (original) (raw)
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Articles by Suvi Satama
The SAGE Handbook of Leadership, 2023
Management Learning, 2021
This study illustrates the value of embodied subtleties in the process of collaborative creativit... more This study illustrates the value of embodied subtleties in the process of collaborative creativity. Drawing on a sensory ethnography of two dance productions, we illustrate the fine-grained ways in which professional dancers negotiate creative processes behind the scenes. We identify three aspects through which collaborative creativity emerges from bodily subtleties: (1) moving beyond individual bodies towards collective ambitions, (2) relating to colleagues' micro-gestures and bodily nuances, and (3) the role of 'serious play' between bodies in setting the scene for the first two aspects to occur. The findings will contribute to our understanding of the practice of collaborative creativity, which we treat as not only a mental but also a highly intimate bodily practice. We conclude that appreciating sensory micro-dynamics between oneself and one's colleagues is crucial for creative collaboration, which is increasingly necessary for management learning in contemporary organisations.
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 2020
Purpose-This study aims to explore how people bodily narrate and use collective memory to clarify... more Purpose-This study aims to explore how people bodily narrate and use collective memory to clarify their embodied experiences regarding a city which they memorise. Design/methodology/approach-Drawing on 1,359 short stories collected by the online travel portal Visit Turku about 'How the city feels', the fine-grained embodied experiences of people are represented through descriptions of their feelings towards the city of Turku. Findings-Based on the analysis, two aspects through which the respondents narrated their embodied experiences of cities have been identified: (1) the sociomaterial entanglements with the city and (2) the humane relationship with the city. Research limitations/implications-This study is limited to short stories acquired online, raising questions of anonymity and representativeness. Thus, these narrations are constructions which have to be interpreted as told by specific people in a certain time and place. Practical implications-Tourist agencies should pay attention to the value of looking at written stories as bodily materialisations of people's experiences of city destinations. Understanding this would strengthen the cities' competitiveness. Originality/value-By empirically highlighting how people memorise a city through narrations, the study offers novel viewpoints on the embodied experiences in cities as well as the cultural constructs these narrations are based on, thus broadening our understanding of how cities become bodily entangled with us.
Gender, Work and Organization, 2020
This piece of writing is a joint initiative by the participants in the Gender, Work and Organizat... more This piece of writing is a joint initiative by the participants in the Gender, Work and Organization writing workshop organized in Helsinki, Finland, in June 2019. This is a particular form of writing differently. We engage in collective writing and embody what it means to write resistance to established academic practices and conventions together. This is a form of emancipatory initiative where we care for each other as writers and as human beings. There are many author voices and we aim to keep the text open and dialogi-cal. As such, this piece of writing is about suppressed thoughts and feelings that our collective picket line allows us to express. In order to maintain the open-ended nature of the text, and perhaps also to retain some 'dirtiness' that is essential to writing, the article has not been language checked throughout by a native speaker of English.
'Writing differently' in Dialogues in Critical Management Studies, 2020
How do we write from the sensory body in ways that can convey the lived experience of the researc... more How do we write from the sensory body in ways that can convey the lived experience of the researcher and the researched, which can allow other researchers to make sense of their lived experience as well? What alternative writings could transform disembodied academia through dialogue and relational reflection? The aim of this chapter is to reflect on the value of the researcher's embodied reflexivity in academic writing. More specifically, this chapter explores the ways in which we can write differently about organisational phenomena by experiencing aesthetic moments in the field. To accomplish this, I share examples of the aesthetic moments that I, as a researcher, experienced while undertaking three ethnographic projects: a study on professional dance, a study on academic motherhood and a study on female-canine companionship. This chapter identifies three aspects that allow the researcher to experience aesthetic moments-namely, appreciating sensory cues, writing 'in and from the flesh' and allowing vulnerability to flourish. Paying attention to the social micro-dynamics that exist between researchers and research phenomena and addressing the analytically marginalised experiences of researchers, therefore, allows for developing academic writing practices in more reflexive and sensory-appreciative directions.
Culture and Organization, 2019
This article enquires into the lived experiences of childbirth as a site of ‘fleshy becomings’ th... more This article enquires into the lived experiences of childbirth as a site of ‘fleshy becomings’ that disrupts the dominantly cleaned-up approaches to organising. Theoretically, we approach childbirth as a primitively humane experience in which birthing bodies become entangled with the materiality by which they are surrounded. The empirical material of the article consists of 12 in-depth interviews with first-time mothers in Finland as well as of photographs and autoethnographic research notes taken by the two authors of this article. By empirically highlighting the interplay between flesh and materiality in the ‘making’ of birthing bodies, this article offers novel viewpoints on the discussion of embodied experiences as well as on the entangled relations between flesh and materiality in the field of organisation studies. It also makes an empirical contribution using a unique contextual example of ‘birthing’ to illustrate how vulnerable topics can be researched, offering critical viewpoints on this subject.
Gender, Work and Organization, 2019
What could we learn from the 'aesth-ethic' practices of clothing children? The dual focus of this... more What could we learn from the 'aesth-ethic' practices of clothing children? The dual focus of this article is to analyse the everyday clothing of children as well as the development of maternal subjectivities as relevant to discussions of aesthetic labour in the field of organization studies. Drawing upon the literatures on aesthetic labour and maternal sub-jectivities in the field of organization studies, we develop a fine-grained understanding of the relatively intense and effortful maternal labours that clothing our children encapsulates. Methodologically, we use autoethnographic diary notes combined with feminist 'memory work' to analyse clothing as an affectual form of storytelling or 'writing' on the child's body that (re)produces certain sociocultural understandings about mothering, sustainability and childhood(s) in a Nordic context embraced by western consumerism. By considering the limitations of the approach taken to drawing wider conclusions about motherhoods, identity construction and clothing, this article advances our understanding of the development of particular middle-class maternal subjectivities seeking to problematize mass consumerism through childrenswear, and how idea(l)s concerning gender and childhood(s) are being (re)produced in and through clothing. K E Y W O R D S aesthetic labour, autoethnography, children, clothing, maternal subjectivities, memory work
Leadership, 2019
This paper explores relational leadership as a reflexive activity that comprises the subtle inter... more This paper explores relational leadership as a reflexive activity that comprises the subtle interplay between the verbal and bodily acts of people at work. Although the existing literature on collective leadership acknowledges various qualities of relational leadership, the latter’s deeply reflexive nature has remained underexplored. By drawing on ethnographic research material from the two controversial; yet, surprisingly similar contexts of ballet and ice hockey, we set out to explore the fine-grained dynamics of the reflexive practices of relational leadership in greater detail. Based on our findings, we argue that relational leadership builds on a bundle of verbal and embodied reflexive practices, entwined with offstage and onstage power dynamics in the workplace. Consequently, our study calls for a more nuanced and bodily appreciative understanding of relational leadership in organisation studies in general.
Gender, Work and Organization, 2018
What could the underdeveloped research area of canine–human companionship teach us about gendered... more What could the underdeveloped research area of canine–human companionship teach us about gendered body work as well as offer to the field of organization studies more broadly? This article responds to recent discussions on the animal in the organizational academy. We share an autoethnographic story of female–canine companionship as experienced by one of the authors of the article and her beloved dog, who is currently living on the borderlines between life and death, joy and mourning. We find this example relevant for raising important feminist concerns among organizational scholars about silenced questions around care and grief as well as for developing more inclusive and ethically grounded approaches to exploring research topics dealing with vulnerability. Finally, this article offers a critical reflection on the potential and limitations of alternative research in the field of organization studies that recognizes our affective relations with animals.
How do early-career academic mothers balance the demands of contemporary motherhood and academia?... more How do early-career academic mothers balance the demands of contemporary motherhood and academia? More generally, how do working mothers develop their embodied selves in today’s highly competitive working life? This article responds to a recent call to voice maternal experiences in the field of organization studies. Inspired by matricentric feminism and building on our intimate autoethnographic diary notes, we provide a fine-grained understanding of the changing demands that constitute the ongoing negotiation of ‘new’ motherhood within the ‘new’ academia. By highlighting the complexity of embodied experience, we show how motherhood is not an entirely negative experience in the workplace. Despite academia’s neoliberal tendencies, the social privilege of whiteness, heterosexuality and the middle class enables – at times – simultaneous satisfaction with both motherhood and an academic career.
Culture and Organization, 2016
This paper explores the subtleties of exercising embodied agency within two contexts shaped by id... more This paper explores the subtleties of exercising embodied agency within two contexts shaped by ideals and norms: ballet and fashion. Here, we focus on how dancers and models rehearsing offstage towards onstage performances negotiate
their potential and limitations for achieving agency over and over. Whereas a ‘turn to embodiment’ has occurred within organization studies, less is known about how embodied agency is choreographed and practised between visible
front stages and ‘hidden’ offstages, or in relation to the various human and nonhuman agents present in the field. The empirical material of this paper is derived from two separate ethnographic studies. By combining insights from the two
contexts, we make a joint effort to explore a complex phenomenon in more detail. This paper develops our micro-level understanding of embodied agency as a relational endeavour, and offers insights into the surprisingly ‘a-mobile’ discussion of embodied practices within organization studies.
This paper explores the subtleties of exercising embodied agency within two contexts shaped by id... more This paper explores the subtleties of exercising embodied agency within two contexts shaped by ideals and norms: ballet and fashion. Here, we focus on how dancers and models rehearsing offstage towards onstage performances negotiate their potential and limitations for achieving agency over and over. Whereas a ‘turn to embodiment’ has occurred within organization studies, less is known about how embodied agency is choreographed and practised between visible front stages and ‘hidden’ offstages, or in relation to the various human and non-human agents present in the field. The empirical material of this paper is derived from two separate ethnographic studies. By combining insights from the two contexts, we make a joint effort to explore a complex phenomenon in more detail. This paper develops our micro-level understanding of embodied agency as a relational endeavour, and offers insights into the surprisingly ‘a-mobile’ discussion of embodied practices within organization studies.
Organizational Aesthetics, 2016
The focus of this paper is on the concepts of passion and vulnerability, which each provide viewp... more The focus of this paper is on the concepts of passion and vulnerability, which each provide viewpoints to develop the theoretical notion of embodied agency. To support my argument I present observations from an ethnographic study of dance. The paper describes how the
relationship between passion and vulnerability works as a means for expanding embodied agency between off and on-stage, and exposes the aspects through which the interrelation
between these concepts materialize among professional dancers. The paper contributes to the surprisingly thin discussion of embodiment at work in organizational studies by deepening our understanding of the link between passion, vulnerability and embodied agency – a triangle deeply connected to all (embodied) professions.
Books by Suvi Satama
Papers by Suvi Satama
Proceedings - Academy of Management, Aug 1, 2020
Organizational Aesthetics, Dec 13, 2015
The focus of this paper is on the concepts of passion and vulnerability, which each provide viewp... more The focus of this paper is on the concepts of passion and vulnerability, which each provide viewpoints to develop the theoretical notion of embodied agency. To support my argument I present observations from an ethnographic study of dance. The paper describes how the relationship between passion and vulnerability works as a means for expanding embodied agency between off and on-stage, and exposes the aspects through which the interrelation between these concepts materialize among professional dancers. The paper contributes to the surprisingly thin discussion of embodiment at work in organizational studies by deepening our understanding of the link between passion, vulnerability and embodied agency-a triangle deeply connected to all (embodied) professions.
Capturing Movement That Evades the Eye: A Sensory Ethnography of the 'Hidden' Qualities of Embodi... more Capturing Movement That Evades the Eye: A Sensory Ethnography of the 'Hidden' Qualities of Embodied Agency in Professional Dance | Summary sub-study describes the researcher's embodied agency by problematising her different positions in relation to her aesthetic experiences during an ethnographic research process. This thesis challenges the dominant view of downplaying the role of the aesthetic qualities of the body in social studies in general, but also specifically within organization studies. It brings forward the question regarding embodied agency and how it matters in our day-today actions. Hence, this thesis is much more than a study about dance, dancing and dancers. It illustrates how being a relational phenomenon, embodied agency is dependent on cultural expectations and bodily practices that are constantly on the move, which are also affected by other humans and non-humans. This thesis contributes to the literature of the body and aesthetics in organization studies by offering a more nuanced understanding of how and to what extent embodied agency can be negotiated. Methodologically, this thesis brings fresh openings to the use of visual material by illustrating the ways that the photographs can be used as a tool for opening up spontaneous discussions about sensitive aspects that are difficult to verbalise. Moreover, this thesis describes the ways the researcher is practising embodied agency in the field as well, and suggests that the researcher's aesthetic experiences do fundamentally matter when carrying out qualitative research.
Organization, Sep 18, 2022
The SAGE Handbook of Leadership, 2023
Management Learning, 2021
This study illustrates the value of embodied subtleties in the process of collaborative creativit... more This study illustrates the value of embodied subtleties in the process of collaborative creativity. Drawing on a sensory ethnography of two dance productions, we illustrate the fine-grained ways in which professional dancers negotiate creative processes behind the scenes. We identify three aspects through which collaborative creativity emerges from bodily subtleties: (1) moving beyond individual bodies towards collective ambitions, (2) relating to colleagues' micro-gestures and bodily nuances, and (3) the role of 'serious play' between bodies in setting the scene for the first two aspects to occur. The findings will contribute to our understanding of the practice of collaborative creativity, which we treat as not only a mental but also a highly intimate bodily practice. We conclude that appreciating sensory micro-dynamics between oneself and one's colleagues is crucial for creative collaboration, which is increasingly necessary for management learning in contemporary organisations.
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 2020
Purpose-This study aims to explore how people bodily narrate and use collective memory to clarify... more Purpose-This study aims to explore how people bodily narrate and use collective memory to clarify their embodied experiences regarding a city which they memorise. Design/methodology/approach-Drawing on 1,359 short stories collected by the online travel portal Visit Turku about 'How the city feels', the fine-grained embodied experiences of people are represented through descriptions of their feelings towards the city of Turku. Findings-Based on the analysis, two aspects through which the respondents narrated their embodied experiences of cities have been identified: (1) the sociomaterial entanglements with the city and (2) the humane relationship with the city. Research limitations/implications-This study is limited to short stories acquired online, raising questions of anonymity and representativeness. Thus, these narrations are constructions which have to be interpreted as told by specific people in a certain time and place. Practical implications-Tourist agencies should pay attention to the value of looking at written stories as bodily materialisations of people's experiences of city destinations. Understanding this would strengthen the cities' competitiveness. Originality/value-By empirically highlighting how people memorise a city through narrations, the study offers novel viewpoints on the embodied experiences in cities as well as the cultural constructs these narrations are based on, thus broadening our understanding of how cities become bodily entangled with us.
Gender, Work and Organization, 2020
This piece of writing is a joint initiative by the participants in the Gender, Work and Organizat... more This piece of writing is a joint initiative by the participants in the Gender, Work and Organization writing workshop organized in Helsinki, Finland, in June 2019. This is a particular form of writing differently. We engage in collective writing and embody what it means to write resistance to established academic practices and conventions together. This is a form of emancipatory initiative where we care for each other as writers and as human beings. There are many author voices and we aim to keep the text open and dialogi-cal. As such, this piece of writing is about suppressed thoughts and feelings that our collective picket line allows us to express. In order to maintain the open-ended nature of the text, and perhaps also to retain some 'dirtiness' that is essential to writing, the article has not been language checked throughout by a native speaker of English.
'Writing differently' in Dialogues in Critical Management Studies, 2020
How do we write from the sensory body in ways that can convey the lived experience of the researc... more How do we write from the sensory body in ways that can convey the lived experience of the researcher and the researched, which can allow other researchers to make sense of their lived experience as well? What alternative writings could transform disembodied academia through dialogue and relational reflection? The aim of this chapter is to reflect on the value of the researcher's embodied reflexivity in academic writing. More specifically, this chapter explores the ways in which we can write differently about organisational phenomena by experiencing aesthetic moments in the field. To accomplish this, I share examples of the aesthetic moments that I, as a researcher, experienced while undertaking three ethnographic projects: a study on professional dance, a study on academic motherhood and a study on female-canine companionship. This chapter identifies three aspects that allow the researcher to experience aesthetic moments-namely, appreciating sensory cues, writing 'in and from the flesh' and allowing vulnerability to flourish. Paying attention to the social micro-dynamics that exist between researchers and research phenomena and addressing the analytically marginalised experiences of researchers, therefore, allows for developing academic writing practices in more reflexive and sensory-appreciative directions.
Culture and Organization, 2019
This article enquires into the lived experiences of childbirth as a site of ‘fleshy becomings’ th... more This article enquires into the lived experiences of childbirth as a site of ‘fleshy becomings’ that disrupts the dominantly cleaned-up approaches to organising. Theoretically, we approach childbirth as a primitively humane experience in which birthing bodies become entangled with the materiality by which they are surrounded. The empirical material of the article consists of 12 in-depth interviews with first-time mothers in Finland as well as of photographs and autoethnographic research notes taken by the two authors of this article. By empirically highlighting the interplay between flesh and materiality in the ‘making’ of birthing bodies, this article offers novel viewpoints on the discussion of embodied experiences as well as on the entangled relations between flesh and materiality in the field of organisation studies. It also makes an empirical contribution using a unique contextual example of ‘birthing’ to illustrate how vulnerable topics can be researched, offering critical viewpoints on this subject.
Gender, Work and Organization, 2019
What could we learn from the 'aesth-ethic' practices of clothing children? The dual focus of this... more What could we learn from the 'aesth-ethic' practices of clothing children? The dual focus of this article is to analyse the everyday clothing of children as well as the development of maternal subjectivities as relevant to discussions of aesthetic labour in the field of organization studies. Drawing upon the literatures on aesthetic labour and maternal sub-jectivities in the field of organization studies, we develop a fine-grained understanding of the relatively intense and effortful maternal labours that clothing our children encapsulates. Methodologically, we use autoethnographic diary notes combined with feminist 'memory work' to analyse clothing as an affectual form of storytelling or 'writing' on the child's body that (re)produces certain sociocultural understandings about mothering, sustainability and childhood(s) in a Nordic context embraced by western consumerism. By considering the limitations of the approach taken to drawing wider conclusions about motherhoods, identity construction and clothing, this article advances our understanding of the development of particular middle-class maternal subjectivities seeking to problematize mass consumerism through childrenswear, and how idea(l)s concerning gender and childhood(s) are being (re)produced in and through clothing. K E Y W O R D S aesthetic labour, autoethnography, children, clothing, maternal subjectivities, memory work
Leadership, 2019
This paper explores relational leadership as a reflexive activity that comprises the subtle inter... more This paper explores relational leadership as a reflexive activity that comprises the subtle interplay between the verbal and bodily acts of people at work. Although the existing literature on collective leadership acknowledges various qualities of relational leadership, the latter’s deeply reflexive nature has remained underexplored. By drawing on ethnographic research material from the two controversial; yet, surprisingly similar contexts of ballet and ice hockey, we set out to explore the fine-grained dynamics of the reflexive practices of relational leadership in greater detail. Based on our findings, we argue that relational leadership builds on a bundle of verbal and embodied reflexive practices, entwined with offstage and onstage power dynamics in the workplace. Consequently, our study calls for a more nuanced and bodily appreciative understanding of relational leadership in organisation studies in general.
Gender, Work and Organization, 2018
What could the underdeveloped research area of canine–human companionship teach us about gendered... more What could the underdeveloped research area of canine–human companionship teach us about gendered body work as well as offer to the field of organization studies more broadly? This article responds to recent discussions on the animal in the organizational academy. We share an autoethnographic story of female–canine companionship as experienced by one of the authors of the article and her beloved dog, who is currently living on the borderlines between life and death, joy and mourning. We find this example relevant for raising important feminist concerns among organizational scholars about silenced questions around care and grief as well as for developing more inclusive and ethically grounded approaches to exploring research topics dealing with vulnerability. Finally, this article offers a critical reflection on the potential and limitations of alternative research in the field of organization studies that recognizes our affective relations with animals.
How do early-career academic mothers balance the demands of contemporary motherhood and academia?... more How do early-career academic mothers balance the demands of contemporary motherhood and academia? More generally, how do working mothers develop their embodied selves in today’s highly competitive working life? This article responds to a recent call to voice maternal experiences in the field of organization studies. Inspired by matricentric feminism and building on our intimate autoethnographic diary notes, we provide a fine-grained understanding of the changing demands that constitute the ongoing negotiation of ‘new’ motherhood within the ‘new’ academia. By highlighting the complexity of embodied experience, we show how motherhood is not an entirely negative experience in the workplace. Despite academia’s neoliberal tendencies, the social privilege of whiteness, heterosexuality and the middle class enables – at times – simultaneous satisfaction with both motherhood and an academic career.
Culture and Organization, 2016
This paper explores the subtleties of exercising embodied agency within two contexts shaped by id... more This paper explores the subtleties of exercising embodied agency within two contexts shaped by ideals and norms: ballet and fashion. Here, we focus on how dancers and models rehearsing offstage towards onstage performances negotiate
their potential and limitations for achieving agency over and over. Whereas a ‘turn to embodiment’ has occurred within organization studies, less is known about how embodied agency is choreographed and practised between visible
front stages and ‘hidden’ offstages, or in relation to the various human and nonhuman agents present in the field. The empirical material of this paper is derived from two separate ethnographic studies. By combining insights from the two
contexts, we make a joint effort to explore a complex phenomenon in more detail. This paper develops our micro-level understanding of embodied agency as a relational endeavour, and offers insights into the surprisingly ‘a-mobile’ discussion of embodied practices within organization studies.
This paper explores the subtleties of exercising embodied agency within two contexts shaped by id... more This paper explores the subtleties of exercising embodied agency within two contexts shaped by ideals and norms: ballet and fashion. Here, we focus on how dancers and models rehearsing offstage towards onstage performances negotiate their potential and limitations for achieving agency over and over. Whereas a ‘turn to embodiment’ has occurred within organization studies, less is known about how embodied agency is choreographed and practised between visible front stages and ‘hidden’ offstages, or in relation to the various human and non-human agents present in the field. The empirical material of this paper is derived from two separate ethnographic studies. By combining insights from the two contexts, we make a joint effort to explore a complex phenomenon in more detail. This paper develops our micro-level understanding of embodied agency as a relational endeavour, and offers insights into the surprisingly ‘a-mobile’ discussion of embodied practices within organization studies.
Organizational Aesthetics, 2016
The focus of this paper is on the concepts of passion and vulnerability, which each provide viewp... more The focus of this paper is on the concepts of passion and vulnerability, which each provide viewpoints to develop the theoretical notion of embodied agency. To support my argument I present observations from an ethnographic study of dance. The paper describes how the
relationship between passion and vulnerability works as a means for expanding embodied agency between off and on-stage, and exposes the aspects through which the interrelation
between these concepts materialize among professional dancers. The paper contributes to the surprisingly thin discussion of embodiment at work in organizational studies by deepening our understanding of the link between passion, vulnerability and embodied agency – a triangle deeply connected to all (embodied) professions.
Proceedings - Academy of Management, Aug 1, 2020
Organizational Aesthetics, Dec 13, 2015
The focus of this paper is on the concepts of passion and vulnerability, which each provide viewp... more The focus of this paper is on the concepts of passion and vulnerability, which each provide viewpoints to develop the theoretical notion of embodied agency. To support my argument I present observations from an ethnographic study of dance. The paper describes how the relationship between passion and vulnerability works as a means for expanding embodied agency between off and on-stage, and exposes the aspects through which the interrelation between these concepts materialize among professional dancers. The paper contributes to the surprisingly thin discussion of embodiment at work in organizational studies by deepening our understanding of the link between passion, vulnerability and embodied agency-a triangle deeply connected to all (embodied) professions.
Capturing Movement That Evades the Eye: A Sensory Ethnography of the 'Hidden' Qualities of Embodi... more Capturing Movement That Evades the Eye: A Sensory Ethnography of the 'Hidden' Qualities of Embodied Agency in Professional Dance | Summary sub-study describes the researcher's embodied agency by problematising her different positions in relation to her aesthetic experiences during an ethnographic research process. This thesis challenges the dominant view of downplaying the role of the aesthetic qualities of the body in social studies in general, but also specifically within organization studies. It brings forward the question regarding embodied agency and how it matters in our day-today actions. Hence, this thesis is much more than a study about dance, dancing and dancers. It illustrates how being a relational phenomenon, embodied agency is dependent on cultural expectations and bodily practices that are constantly on the move, which are also affected by other humans and non-humans. This thesis contributes to the literature of the body and aesthetics in organization studies by offering a more nuanced understanding of how and to what extent embodied agency can be negotiated. Methodologically, this thesis brings fresh openings to the use of visual material by illustrating the ways that the photographs can be used as a tool for opening up spontaneous discussions about sensitive aspects that are difficult to verbalise. Moreover, this thesis describes the ways the researcher is practising embodied agency in the field as well, and suggests that the researcher's aesthetic experiences do fundamentally matter when carrying out qualitative research.
Organization, Sep 18, 2022
Gender, Work and Organization, Dec 12, 2019
What could we learn from the ‘aesth‐ethic’ practices of clothing children? The dual focus of this... more What could we learn from the ‘aesth‐ethic’ practices of clothing children? The dual focus of this article is to analyse the everyday clothing of children as well as the development of maternal subjectivities as relevant to discussions of aesthetic labour in the field of organization studies. Drawing upon the literatures on aesthetic labour and maternal subjectivities in the field of organization studies, we develop a fine‐grained understanding of the relatively intense and effortful maternal labours that clothing our children encapsulates. Methodologically, we use autoethnographic diary notes combined with feminist ‘memory work’ to analyse clothing as an affectual form of storytelling or ‘writing’ on the child's body that (re)produces certain sociocultural understandings about mothering, sustainability and childhood(s) in a Nordic context embraced by western consumerism. By considering the limitations of the approach taken to drawing wider conclusions about motherhoods, identity construction and clothing, this article advances our understanding of the development of particular middle‐class maternal subjectivities seeking to problematize mass consumerism through childrenswear, and how idea(l)s concerning gender and childhood(s) are being (re)produced in and through clothing.
Human Relations, Apr 17, 2018
How do early-career academic mothers balance the demands of contemporary motherhood and academia?... more How do early-career academic mothers balance the demands of contemporary motherhood and academia? More generally, how do working mothers develop their embodied selves in today's highly competitive working life? This article responds to a recent call to voice maternal experiences in the field of organization studies. Inspired by matricentric feminism and building on our intimate autoethnographic diary notes, we provide a fine-grained understanding of the changing demands that constitute the ongoing negotiation of 'new' motherhood within the 'new' academia. By highlighting the complexity of embodied experience, we show how motherhood is not an entirely negative experience in the workplace. Despite academia's neoliberal tendencies, the social privilege of whiteness, heterosexuality and the middle class enables-at times-simultaneous satisfaction with both motherhood and an academic career.
Culture and Organization, Feb 28, 2016
This paper explores the subtleties of exercising embodied agency within two contexts shaped by id... more This paper explores the subtleties of exercising embodied agency within two contexts shaped by ideals and norms: ballet and fashion. Here, we focus on how dancers and models rehearsing offstage towards onstage performances negotiate their potential and limitations for achieving agency over and over. Whereas a ‘turn to embodiment’ has occurred within organization studies, less is known about how embodied agency is choreographed and practised between visible front stages and ‘hidden’ offstages, or in relation to the various human and non-human agents present in the field. The empirical material of this paper is derived from two separate ethnographic studies. By combining insights from the two contexts, we make a joint effort to explore a complex phenomenon in more detail. This paper develops our micro-level understanding of embodied agency as a relational endeavour, and offers insights into the surprisingly ‘a-mobile’ discussion of embodied practices within organization studies.
Gender, Work and Organization, Sep 14, 2018
What could the underdeveloped research area of caninehuman companionship teach us about gendered ... more What could the underdeveloped research area of caninehuman companionship teach us about gendered body work as well as offer to the field of organization studies more broadly? This article responds to recent discussions on the animal in the organizational academy. We share an autoethnographic story of female-canine companionship as experienced by one of the authors of the article and her beloved dog, who is currently living on the borderlines between life and death, joy and mourning. We find this example relevant for raising important feminist concerns among organizational scholars about silenced questions around care and grief as well as for developing more inclusive and ethically grounded approaches to exploring research topics dealing with vulnerability. Finally, this article offers a critical reflection on the potential and limitations of alternative research in the field of organization studies that recognizes our affective relations with animals.
Writing Differently, 2020
How do we write from the sensory body in ways that can convey the lived experience of the researc... more How do we write from the sensory body in ways that can convey the lived experience of the researcher and the researched, which can allow other researchers to make sense of their lived experience as well? What alternative writings could transform disembodied academia through dialogue and relational reflection? The aim of this chapter is to reflect on the value of the researcher’s embodied reflexivity in academic writing. More specifically, this chapter explores the ways in which we can write differently about organisational phenomena by experiencing aesthetic moments in the field. To accomplish this, I share examples of the aesthetic moments that I, as a researcher, experienced while undertaking three ethnographic projects: a study on professional dance, a study on academic motherhood and a study on female-canine companionship. This chapter identifies three aspects that allow the researcher to experience aesthetic moments – namely, appreciating sensory cues, writing ‘in and from the flesh’ and allowing vulnerability to flourish. Paying attention to the social micro-dynamics that exist between researchers and research phenomena and addressing the analytically marginalised experiences of researchers, therefore, allows for developing academic writing practices in more reflexive and sensory-appreciative directions.
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 2020
Purpose This study aims to explore how people bodily narrate and use collective memory to clarify... more Purpose This study aims to explore how people bodily narrate and use collective memory to clarify their embodied experiences regarding a city which they memorise. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on 1,359 short stories collected by the online travel portal Visit Turku about ‘How the city feels’, the fine-grained embodied experiences of people are represented through descriptions of their feelings towards the city of Turku. Findings Based on the analysis, two aspects through which the respondents narrated their embodied experiences of cities have been identified: (1) the sociomaterial entanglements with the city and (2) the humane relationship with the city. Research limitations/implications This study is limited to short stories acquired online, raising questions of anonymity and representativeness. Thus, these narrations are constructions which have to be interpreted as told by specific people in a certain time and place. Practical implications Tourist agencies should pay attent...
Leadership, 2019
This paper explores relational leadership as a reflexive activity that comprises the subtle inter... more This paper explores relational leadership as a reflexive activity that comprises the subtle interplay between the verbal and bodily acts of people at work. Although the existing literature on collective leadership acknowledges various qualities of relational leadership, the latter's deeply reflexive nature has remained underexplored. By drawing on ethnographic research material from the two controversial; yet, surprisingly similar contexts of ballet and ice hockey, we set out to explore the fine-grained dynamics of the reflexive practices of relational leadership in greater detail. Based on our findings, we argue that relational leadership builds on a bundle of verbal and embodied reflexive practices, entwined with offstage and onstage power dynamics in the workplace. Consequently, our study calls for a more nuanced and bodily appreciative understanding of relational leadership in organisation studies in general.
SAGE Publications Ltd eBooks, 2023
Culture and Organization, 2019
This article enquires into the lived experiences of childbirth as a site of 'fleshy becomings' th... more This article enquires into the lived experiences of childbirth as a site of 'fleshy becomings' that disrupts the dominantly cleaned-up approaches to organising. Theoretically, we approach childbirth as a primitively humane experience in which birthing bodies become entangled with the materiality by which they are surrounded. The empirical material of the article consists of 12 in-depth interviews with first-time mothers in Finland as well as of photographs and autoethnographic research notes taken by the two authors of this article. By empirically highlighting the interplay between flesh and materiality in the 'making' of birthing bodies, this article offers novel viewpoints on the discussion of embodied experiences as well as on the entangled relations between flesh and materiality in the field of organisation studies. It also makes an empirical contribution using a unique contextual example of 'birthing' to illustrate how vulnerable topics can be researched, offering critical viewpoints on this subject.
Gender, Work & Organization, 2020
This piece of writing is a joint initiative by participants in the Gender, Work and Organization ... more This piece of writing is a joint initiative by participants in the Gender, Work and Organization writing workshop organized in Helsinki, Finland, in June 2019. An exercise in writing differently, engage in collective writing and embody what it means to write resistance to established academic practices and conventions. This is an emancipatory process where we care for each other as writers and as human beings. There are many author voices and we aim to keep the text open and dialogical. As such, this piece of writing is about suppressed thoughts and feelings that our collective picket line allows us to express. To maintain the open-ended nature of the text, and perhaps also to retain some 'dirtiness' that is essential to writing, the paper has not been language checked throughout by a native speaker of English.
Gender, Work & Organization, 2019
What could we learn from the 'aesth-ethic' practices of clothing children? The du... more What could we learn from the 'aesth-ethic' practices of clothing children? The dual focus of this article is to analyse the everyday clothing of children as well as the development of maternal subjectivities as relevant to discussions of aesthetic labour in the field of organization studies. Drawing upon the literatures on aesthetic labour and maternal sub-jectivities in the field of organization studies, we develop a fine-grained understanding of the relatively intense and effortful maternal labours that clothing our children encapsulates. Methodologically, we use autoethnographic diary notes combined with feminist 'memory work' to analyse clothing as an affectual form of storytelling or 'writing' on the child's body that (re)produces certain sociocultural understandings about mothering, sustainability and childhood(s) in a Nordic context embraced by western consumerism. By considering the limitations of the approach taken to drawing wider conclusions about motherhoods, identity construction and clothing, this article advances our understanding of the development of particular middle-class maternal subjectivities seeking to problematize mass consumerism through childrenswear, and how idea(l)s concerning gender and childhood(s) are being (re)produced in and through clothing. K E Y W O R D S aesthetic labour, autoethnography, children, clothing, maternal subjectivities, memory work
Gender, Work & Organization, 2018
What could the underdeveloped research area of caninehuman companionship teach us about gendered ... more What could the underdeveloped research area of caninehuman companionship teach us about gendered body work as well as offer to the field of organization studies more broadly? This article responds to recent discussions on the animal in the organizational academy. We share an autoethnographic story of female-canine companionship as experienced by one of the authors of the article and her beloved dog, who is currently living on the borderlines between life and death, joy and mourning. We find this example relevant for raising important feminist concerns among organizational scholars about silenced questions around care and grief as well as for developing more inclusive and ethically grounded approaches to exploring research topics dealing with vulnerability. Finally, this article offers a critical reflection on the potential and limitations of alternative research in the field of organization studies that recognizes our affective relations with animals.
Human Relations, 2018
How do early-career academic mothers balance the demands of contemporary motherhood and academia?... more How do early-career academic mothers balance the demands of contemporary motherhood and academia? More generally, how do working mothers develop their embodied selves in today’s highly competitive working life? This article responds to a recent call to voice maternal experiences in the field of organization studies. Inspired by matricentric feminism and building on our intimate autoethnographic diary notes, we provide a fine-grained understanding of the changing demands that constitute the ongoing negotiation of ‘new’ motherhood within the ‘new’ academia. By highlighting the complexity of embodied experience, we show how motherhood is not an entirely negative experience in the workplace. Despite academia’s neoliberal tendencies, the social privilege of whiteness, heterosexuality and the middle class enables – at times – simultaneous satisfaction with both motherhood and an academic career.